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911 Telecommunicators Pension Benefits Workgroup

 This was the agenda for today's meeting:


Item 1 attendance turned out to be very important. The workgroup committee has only 2 Corrections Officers that can vote. The CO from Sherburne County chosen by PERA and the MSRS CO from the State were not there! (EDIT: After this posting it was learned the vote was scheduled when neither were available.)

This meant there was no corrections vote when it came to approving or arguing changes and the all important vote to approve and adopt the report! There is an Advisor a retired CO, Wade Laszlo. He was able to speak but unable to make motions to make  changes to the draft or vote on approval at this meeting.

The Chair stated that for something to have consensus there had to be no objections. So there was no consensus to improve the Dispatcher's pension and the line stating "Pension coverage for 911 Telecommunicators should not be changed to the PERA or MSRS Correctional Plans" was scratched before the meeting even started! However there will be no recommendation to add them to the corrections plan either.

The Dispatchers and dispatch groups were united on wanting to improve their plan including most wanting in on the Correctional Plans. The County and City Governmental Groups were against that, as well as the Correctional Officers (from previous meetings) were neutral on improving dispatcher's pensions but all against adding them to the Correctional Plan. 

What's next? The report and appendix will be presented to the Legislative Commission on Pension and Retirement. They can let it die, ask for additional study or use it to make recommendations to the full legislature.

MNCORA did object to the 7 anonymous LELS testimonials in the appendix and names were added to the letters.

The vote approved and passed the Final Draft.

We will publish the final draft when it is out. 


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